"The young, yes; but how about all those women, most of 'em belonged to your church too, that wore such corruption clothes when they all had bicycles, and the fever was at its worst?"
"Exercise, Mrs. Stout, excuses—"
"Exercise fiddlesticks! You've got the wrong idea, Mr. Flint, and for that reason I s'pose you've done more'n anybody else to disgrace a good woman—the one that your son cares more about than—"
"Stop!" cried the parson, feebly, as he raised his hand protestingly.
"I will stop, because I ain't sure about that. But I must say this much, that I hope you'll live long enough to repent, though from what I've heard, and know about you, you'll have to live to be a hundred. Good night." Mrs. Stout turned as abruptly as she had spoken, walked down the path and up the road toward the home of Mr. George, the chairman of the school committee. Mr. Flint closed the door, returned to his study, and sank wearily into a chair. Sick though he was, Mrs. Stout had made him realize that there was another side to the question, and he asked himself repeatedly, as Barbara had been doing, have I done wrong? And the answer was the same. No; he had performed his duty as he saw it—man can do no more than that and serve God. But the view-point, there is always more than one, and then his mind wandered to the women on the bicycles.
Mr. George was at home when Mrs. Stout called, and was delighted to see her. He asked her to come in, and she accepted the invitation. She afterward explained, when relating the story to Peter, that "I wouldn't have gone in only I had so much to say, and Mr. George is so bald I didn't want him to catch cold and die, and then be called a murderer by his wife."
"Rather unusual to see you on a Sunday evening," said Mr. George, cheerfully, when Mrs. Stout was comfortably seated.
"It's an unusual case," she replied, stiffly.
Mr. George raised his eyebrows, and then frowned.
"Indeed," he replied, a little perplexed.